Aching
by kassyfreak
Summary: I missed him. I felt empty. I wasn't truly happy, and I felt no joy doing anything. He had always been there with me and it just wasn't the same. Sam and Frodo, implied Merry and Pippin


**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters mentioned in this story. All I claim ownership over are the words below.**

And yet, for some reason, I couldn't think. I couldn't even wonder why this had happened. I was torn in two. Why had he left me here, crushed, broken, hopeless? It had been two years since I had last seen him, last _felt_ him touching my face with his fingertips. Two years was a very long time to live through the numbness that I awoke to every day. I didn't even feel adoration for my flowers, or the Shire, anymore.

All I could think about was what he and I had done. I gardened for him, we drank at the Green Dragon, and he had always been with me.

Sure, I was married to a lovely lass, but I just didn't feel… happy. I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her like I had thought. _He_ had been here with me, and I hadn't realized that _that_ was why I had felt whole. It was because I was with _him, _not _her._ I had felt happy when I was around him. But…. But…

I had been blinded. I had no comfort now, and no tears would appear to blind me once again from the clarity of my emptiness.

I truly was in love with him. I couldn't even fathom how I had _not _realized this when we were together. That was why I had been so protective of him when Gollum was with us. That was why I had been heartbroken when he had said that I was the problem, and that I needed to leave.

He was always there with me. _Always. _I had been used to his presence.

And when he had pressed his lips on my forehead one last time, I could feel the pleading _Come with me_ resonating from him. I was too oblivious to notice, to _realize_ that he had loved me as well. But I was married! I couldn't just abandon Rosie to fend for herself _and_ the children.

But I could've sent Merry and Pippin back to tell her I had left. She would've been heartbroken, though. Samwise Gamgee, you selfish bastard. You're too busy wallowing in self pity every day to realize that Rosie misses the real cheerful you she knew. But you were only that way because _he_ was there.

He was there at my wedding with fake happiness plastered on his face, and devastation in his eyes when he thought that I didn't love him in return, even when he hinted at his feelings for me. And I just thought it was because our group of bachelors had been shrunk down to three instead of the four it was during our long journey.

I never felt anything under my fingertips anymore. There wasn't even the taste of ale to help calm my nerves. It didn't taste the same. And I couldn't escape the sorrow just by spending my evenings at the Green Dragon, and to come home every night to a crying baby, a frustrated wife, and a small child asking somewhere, "What's wrong with Daddy?" fearfully.

I knew that Merry and Pippin were sad that he was gone, but I was devastated. They would always have each other, and that was good enough for them. They were weeping when he left, too. But they hadn't felt like they were crushed under an oliphaunt, like I had, and still do. Dammit! Why had he made me feel like this?

Even Rosie knew there was something wrong with me. She smelled the scent of ale stuck to my cloak, and tasted the salt of tears when I'd kiss her halfheartedly every night. But the tears were gone. They wouldn't come now. I was drunk, dizzy, slurring my words together, sitting on the edge of my bed, but I couldn't even sob.

And all I could feel through my everlasting numbness was the lingering kiss he had placed so longingly on my forehead.

I should've gone. I missed him. I loved him. I was _in_ _love_ with him.

I should've gone.

I needed him.

I needed Frodo.

And one longing sob erupted from my throat as if it had been waiting till I thought his name. His sweet name. The sob was loud, and it lingered in the hot sticky air. One sob.

One sob.

I was alone.

Truly alone.

My heart ached.

I loved him.

I loved Frodo.

_Fin._


End file.
